On July 10, 2015, CMS posted a notice to the Recovery Auditor Program webpage indicating that the Requests for Quotes for the next round of Recovery Auditor contracts were withdrawn as of June 4, 2015. According to the notice, CMS plans to update the original Statement of Work and release new proposal requests “shortly”. MiraVista has reached out to CMS officials for clarification on the notice, to question whether this directly impacts the contract for the National RAC for DMEPOS, Hospice and Home Health that was previously awarded to Connelly Healthcare. To date, we have not received final clarification.

﻿﻿In February of 2014 CMS issued the original Request for Proposal on the next round of RAC contracts. In that same notice, CMS established and implemented new improvements to the Medicare RAC program. During the updated contracting process CMS instituted a brief reprieve from RAC audit activity. However, as a result of the changes to the Statement of Work, the incumbent DME RAC contractors filed a pre-award protest with the Government Accountability Office arguing that the new rules would not be financially practical and would restrict competition. Despite the protest, CMS announced the contract award for the National RAC to Connolly, LLC on December 30, 2014. This announcement was met by two separate post-award protests which were ultimately dismissed earlier this year.

This most recent notification has been the first regarding procurement since the protests were announced earlier this year. We speculate that this most recent notice is a result of the protests filed by the incumbent RAC contractors, which has stalled the process of awarding new contracts. No additional public announcements have been made regarding the specific escalation of the already awarded National DME RAC contract to Connolly. MiraVista will continue to seek insights and additional details as to what DME providers can expect from the CMS RAC activity. In the meantime, according to the notice, the current RACs “will continue active recovery auditing through at least December 31, 2015.” Stay tuned to the MiraVista blog for additional details on this issue as they become available.